Kincaid v. Eaton
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Contract to recover one hundred dollars of a reward offered by the defendant in an advertisement as follows: “ One hundred and ten dollars reward. Lost, a pocket-book containing papers valuable only to the owner. The finder can have the above reward by returning book and contents to the Transcript office,” being the office of a newspaper in Boston in which the advertisement was published.
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Contract to recover one hundred dollars of a reward offered by the defendant in an advertisement as follows: “ One hundred and ten dollars reward. Lost, a pocket-book containing papers valuable only to the owner. The finder can have the above reward by returning book and contents to the Transcript office,” being the office of a newspaper in Boston in which the advertisement was published. At the trial in the superior court, before Putnam} J., the evidence was substantially as follows: On Wednesday, November 28,1866, the defendant was at the Merchants’ Bank in State Street, Boston, making a…
1Opinion of the CourtWells, J.
Upon the facts of this case, and the authorities cited (McAvoy v. Medina, 11 Allen, 548; Lawrence v. The State, 1 Humph. 228; Wentworth v. Day, 3 Met. 354; Symmes v. Frazier, 6 Mass. 345,) the plaintiff did not come into possession of the pocket-book in such manner as to give him the special property therein which belongs to the finder of an article lost by the owner. By the terms of the advertisement the reward could be earned only by the return of the pocket-book by one who had entitled himself to those rights by finding. To discover an article voluntarily laid down by the owner within a…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Townes v. DurbinCourt of Appeals of Kentucky · 1860
3Cited by14 opinions
- Foulke v. New York Consolidated RailroadNew York Court of Appeals · 1920
- Hoagland v. Forest Park Highlands Amusement Co.Supreme Court of Missouri · 1902
- Kuykendall v. FisherWest Virginia Supreme Court · 1906
- Jackson v. SteinbergOregon Supreme Court · 1948
- Livermore v. WhiteSupreme Judicial Court of Maine · 1883
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